Noted for his work with anybody from David S Ware to Craig Taborn to Tomasz Stańko, Gerald Cleaver has been one of the outstanding drummers of the last two decades. The Detroit native's solo albums are somewhat overlooked, but this latest offering makes a very strong case for reassessment. In addition to his ability on the kit Cleaver is also an imaginative, daring producer and programmer and he brings these skills together to create a fascinating tribute to the storytellers-praise singers-poets at the heart of West African oral culture, which vividly connects with the African-American experience.

The pieces dedicated to inspirational elders Victor Lewis, Geri Allen, William Parker and Faruq Z Bey, as well as Cleaver's own mother, have an added resonance as a result, but it is the drummer-producer's electronic sorcery that really sets the pulse racing, primarily because he has an ability to create timbre and meter that have less of the rigidity associated with techno and more of the fluidity synonymous with improvised music, the highpoint of which is the dazzling ‘Tribe’, in which a piping motif is framed by rattling berimbau-like chords over a thrusting 12/8 groove. The sense of physicality, of a body breathing the rhythm into life, is superb.

The measured but potent input of pianist David Virelles and trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire further enriches the sound palette, but this is very much a personal triumph for Cleaver, an artistic and cultural statement of intent from a virtuoso who has infused the dynamism of his live playing into the word of laptops and waveforms. Detroit musicians have a long history of engagement with machines as well as instruments and this is a masterful synthesis of those two infinitely rich strands.